brief biography

Nicholas Vaux’s mother Catherine, an attendant on Queen Margaret of Anjou, remained constant to her mistress when others forsook the Lancastrian cause. Her husband, Sir William Vaux of Great Harrowden, whom she had married not long before she obtained her letters of denization, was slain at the battle of Tewkesbury after which he was attainted and his property forfeited, but not even his death shook Catherine Vaux’s loyalty: she stayed by the Queen during her imprisonment in the Tower and on Margaret’s release in 1476 went with her into exile (as she had done earlier in the 1460s), living with her until her death six years later.

Catherine’s two children did not share either her confinement or her travels abroad; instead, Nicholas Vaux was brought up in the household of Margaret, Countess of Richmond, without charge even though Edward IV restored two manors to the family for the maintenance of him and his sister.4

Catherine’s devotion was rewarded after the triumph of Henry VII at Bosworth, where Nicholas Vaux, as a protégé of Margaret Beaufort, probably fought under her husband Lord Stanley; the petition for the reversal of the attainder on Vaux’s father and the forfeiture of his property was accepted by the King in the Parliament of 1485, and not long after Vaux was named to the commission of the peace for his home county.

He fought for the King at Stoke and Blackheath, being knighted on the field for his service in both battles. Not only was he active and diligent in local government but he was also frequently at court attending all the great state occasions at home and abroad until his death; in 1511 he entertained Henry VIII at Harrowden. It was as a soldier and diplomat, however, that he made his mark. Given the important command at Guisnes, he distinguished himself during the Tournai campaign in 1513 and then in the missions (he had had some earlier experiences in negotiating, chiefly with Burgundy) to the French King about the English withdrawal and the several royal marriage treaties. Later, he was one of the devisers of the Field of Cloth of Gold.

Her daughter Joan had also benefited from the change of dynasty: she entered the royal household, became governess to Henry VII’s daughters and married successively Sir Richard Guildford and the father of Sir Nicholas Poyntz.5

[S39] Medieval, royalty, nobility family group sheets (filmed 1996), Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Family History Department. Medieval Family History Unit, (Manuscript. Salt Lake City, Utah : Filmed by the Genealogical Society of Utah, 1996), FHL film 1553977-1553985..